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From: smb@ulysses.att.com (Steven Bellovin)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Gulf Lessons re length of preliminary bombardment
Message-ID: <1991May24.030256.8881@amd.com>
Date: 23 May 91 17:06:52 GMT
References: <1991May20.052128.21457@amd.com> <1991May21.024354.13558@amd.com> <1991May23.063031.17726@amd.com>
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From: smb@ulysses.att.com (Steven Bellovin)


swilliam@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Steve Williams) writes:
> Regardless of Iraq's anti-aircraft defense, the F-117As went inside and
> destroyed Iraq's most valuable military asset -  the military communication
> center.

I'm can't tell if you're referring to one particular building or set of
buildings, but a recent article in the NY Times calls into question
just how badly the Iraqi military communications network was damaged.
Apparently as a result of the war, the U.S. is proposing to add tight
new restrictions on the export of certain communications gear.  It was
a non-technical article, so I can't say for certain exactly what is
being regulated; the three items mentioned were datagram switches,
``fast select'' capability, and dynamic reroute capability.  Translated
into English, those all refer to communications devices that can be
used to build a decentralized or survivable network.  The article
claimed that the motivation for this was the difficulty the U.S. had in
actually preventing the military from ``talking''.

I confess that I find this quite ironic.  The DoD has spent lots of
money over the years fostering the development of the TCP/IP protocol
suite, and one of the reasons for its architecture is that it is
survivable.  I guess they now know it works...

--Steve Bellovin